Friday, January 20, Russian Internet users published several videos showing Pantsir surface-to-air missile systems installed at different points in the Russian capital, yet very far from the front and a priori out of reach of the Ukrainian army.
In the images circulating on Russian social networks, we can identify a little less than a dozen batteries in Moscow, including one installed on the roof of the Ministry of Defense, in the city center. Another battery would have been deployed about ten kilometers from Vladimir Putin’s residence in Novo-Ogariovo, west of Moscow.
Speculation is rife on the reason for the deployment of these very modern systems, especially since the Kremlin refuses to comment, and a member of the Russian Parliament speaks of him, despite the evidence, of “fakes” and ” photomontages”.
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What is Moscow’s objective?
For some experts, it must above all be seen as a psychological operation, a desire to worry the Russian public, to make them feel that they are in a state of war, and to evoke, perhaps, these photographs of anti-aircraft guns in Moscow during World War II.
For others, if these missiles are deployed, it is because the Kremlin is no longer really certain of the invulnerability of its capital. In recent months, Russian air bases, sometimes very far from the front, have been hit by Ukrainian drones long range. We don’t know much about these new drones, but obviously, on the Russian side, they are taken very seriously.
In any case, Russia announced on Saturday January 21 that it had conducted anti-aircraft defense exercises in the Moscow region, to protect its essential infrastructure in the event of ” aerial attacks », Against the backdrop of the conflict with Ukraine. ” Exercises were held in the Moscow region, with the personnel of the anti-aircraft missile brigade of the Western Military District, to repel air attacks against important military, industrial and administrative infrastructure “, said the Russian Ministry of Defense in a press release.